domassimo

This mod is not much more than a tweaked version of Extraplanetary Lauchpads, which provides all the underlying logic. EPL has a more complicated resource chain and requires specific additional parts to do certain steps in that chain, which this mod omits and/or replaces with stock parts. So EPL is the mod to check out for the source code, etc.

I don't think it's released yet so you'd have to test before using this in a career game, etc. Most of it tends to work though. However, I would suggest waiting if you're unsure.

Do you have something that actually would consume the energy? Are your engines running and requiring energy? If the answer is no, the reactor will indeed shut off right after it recharges the batteries (assuming the initial kickstart was done with battery power). If the answer is yes, maybe it's a bug. Still, even if it's the former, it can be a bit counterintuitive.

It may be that from 1.4.x onward, core heat cannot access more heat transfer capability than it would need. Running more than one converter may put it over that limit. If I'm correct, you would see the same behaviour with a fully stock craft. There is little this mod can do if that's the case. You could increase the max cooling numbers of the ISRU with ModuleManager. Note that Squad reasons this (the setting of max requestable cooling capacity > max effective core heat transfer possible) opens up a bug where parts want to consume more radiator capacity than they need so that a sufficient amount of radiators is not enough (despite the numbers suggesting otherwise). I think Squad decided that rather than solving this bug (in a more complicated way?), setting those fields to equal values accomplishes the same. However, that does mean the limits in any part are now enforced in a stricter way.

For now, that seems 'working as intended.' The fusion reactors operate in a similar way to the chargeable engines, thus to start them, you need a significant electrical charge to begin with. This simulates the fact that a fusion reactor requires a high initial investment before it generates more energy than you put into it (this is the real-life challenge with them too, no sustained output yet that reliably overcomes the initial and continued power input). In the game, it simply means you'll always need a secondary power source to kickstart your fusion reactor. If you have large enough batteries, even a single RTG will do the trick. The second issue is that the fusion reactor shuts off when it cannot deliver its electric power somewhere. Without load, it powers down and requires the restart charging again. This is why, when you shut off the engines, the fusion reactor also shut off. I'm not sure but I believe it needs a minimum load of 10% of its maximum capacity, which is around 400 EC/s I think. That's quite a hefty amount. Unless you have lots of cryo tanks to cool, life support and other things going on, most ships won't be able to accommodate that without electric engines running. Again, it seems that a fusion reactor is best supported by another smaller power source for sustained power, with the fusion reactor only active when large amounts of power are drawn. I don't know how the fusion reactor compares in terms of mass and fuel mass to the fission reactors of Near Future Electrical, I suppose a fusion reactor plus small fission reactor may be preferred over one heavier fission reactor and nuclear fuel reserves.

You also need crew space that allows for building the rockets, plus qualified engineers onboard. If an engineer is not skilled enough (no stars) and/or too stupid, productivity is low or negative. So test in Sandbox whether your craft works with 5-star engineers with low stupidity. If it doesn't, you're missing something on your craft.

It seems there is a little issue with Fust in the latest release. In the config file, VertexHeightNoise uses the noiseType = RiggedMultiFractal. That should be ridgedMultifractal, I think? And a bit further down, there is a line with just 'ridgedMode' without a value (could be something like 'ridgedMode = Low'). I'm not sure what the effect is of these things, but I came across them when updating.

Oh, that risk falls squarely on the Kerbals going on the interstellar expedition (after signing the waiver)... ;-) On a more serious note, I wonder if it would be possible (in general, not necessarily for the mods discussed here) to use heat sinks as used in Elite:Dangerous. In that game, a heat sink 'soaks up' all vessel heat and then gets ejected, instantly cooling the vessel. In KSP, a heat sink could be ejected automatically when coming out of time-warp, hopefully just one frame ahead of the inevitable heat-redistribution-instigated-mayhem. Presumably, that could work if there are gameplay tradeoffs, such as still needing the requisite radiators to 'load' the heat sink to avoid leaving them out. It's just an idea, not a suggestion, and ideally, a future version of KSP allows normal radiators to take care of it the proper way.

I think that could work, there is a heatProduction value in the engine section of the config files. However, there may still be some heat unless you set it to 0 and with the high mass of engines, that equates to quite a bit of thermal energy. Another issue, if I'm not mistaken, is that radiator panels don't work very well in 1.3.1. Any thermal control system (thus, the ones that can cool any part anywhere on the ship) are not utilised well (or rather, parts demand more cooling than these should, rendering radiators ineffective). This means that even if your ship could deal with the heat, the second bug prevents the ship from actually doing so. Apparently, using only radiators panel that cool just nearby parts sidesteps that issue. The suitable stock radiator panels are too small to properly cool any FFT engine, but you could set a large panel from Heat Control to only cool nearby parts to help you get by until this bug is addressed.

It really depends on what kind of energy your vessel requires to maintain steady operation. I find that cooling for cryotanks may already exceed the ability of solar panels to generate power, at least some of the time when in orbit around a planet (no sunlight all the time). A life support mod would add another need for power, such that leaving a reactor to run at a low steady state is necessary. Even then, reducing the amount of uranium is likely to work out fine.

I think the first number refers to the mass of your current stage, the second number is the total mass. I have not verified this though, but that seems the most likely answer.

You basically can't as there is no node on the side where the port extends towards. If there was, that node would be either too high when the port is retracted or too low when it is extended as it is fixed in place. The stock shielded docking port suffers the same fate. You'll have to use the standard docking port if you want to use it as a decoupler.

Yes, you would be able to make a closed-loop system with just USI-LS. As I may have mentioned before, the conversion from ore to fertiliser is rather slow (MKS brings on more efficient ways of doing it by mining minerals or gypsum, not sure). I personally also gave the larger ISRU the ability to convert ore into fertiliser to make it a bit easier to make larger bases closed-loop without the need for an otherwise unnecessary mini ISRU unit. I would test a vessel on Kerbin first to see if fertiliser generation is quick enough to keep up with its consumption before sending it into the void.

There is a module manager patch included that makes it possible to generate Fertilizer from just ore, albeit at a slow rate, and only with the smaller ISRU unit. In my experience, using the smaller drills and ISRU unit without an engineer to speed up the process, the rate of production may not be sufficient to sustain a large group of Kerbals. Getting a good spot for mining ore might help with keeping your base sustainable.

I believe you need to unlock the Antimatter Power tech node first, which is deep into the technology tree, assuming you use the Community Tech Tree. This tech to unlock is set in the FFTSettings.cfg file (in the FarFutureTechnologies folder). I'm thinking that if you don't use the Community Tech Tree, you won't encounter or be able to unlock the antimatterPower node. I suppose if you run a stock tech tree, it would be best to adjust the relevant line in that config file with a node name that does appear in the stock tech tree. When/if this mod comes out, I guess that setting needs some adjustment to detect the presence of CCT before setting antimatterPower as the default. I suppose of the stock 1000 science nodes, Experimental Science (experimentalScience in the config files) would be the most suitable default node.